Colorado § 17-26-301 - Legislative declaration.

§ 17-26-301. Legislative declaration.

(1) The general assembly finds that:

(a) Placing individuals with serious mental illness in restrictive housing, also known as solitary confinement, within a local jail is inappropriate and causes further harm to the individual;

(b) According to the National Commission on Correctional Health Care, prolonged solitary confinement is cruel, inhumane, and degrading treatment and harmful to an individual's health, and juveniles, individuals with serious mental illness, and pregnant women should be excluded from solitary confinement of any duration;

(c) The World Health Organization, United Nations, and other international bodies have recognized that solitary confinement is harmful to health;

(d) Psychological effects caused by placement in isolation can include self-harm, suicide, paranoia, psychosis, cognitive disturbances, perceptual distortions, obsessive thoughts, anxiety, and depression;

(e) Studies have shown that the psychological stress created from solitary confinement compares to the distress of physical torture. According to United States District Judge Thelton Henderson, putting an individual with a serious mental illness in solitary confinement is the equivalent of putting a person with asthma in a place with little air.

(f) In 2012, a task force appointed by the United States attorney general concluded that nowhere is the damaging impact of incarceration on vulnerable children more obvious than when it involves solitary confinement. Juveniles experience symptoms of paranoia, anxiety, and depression even after very short periods of isolation.

(g) The United Nations Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners state that solitary confinement should be prohibited in cases involving children and in the case of adults with mental or physical disabilities when their conditions would be exacerbated by such measures; and

(h) International standards established by the United Nations Rules for the Treatment of Women Prisoners and Non-custodial Measures for Women Offenders state that pregnant women should never be placed in solitary confinement as they are especially susceptible to its harmful psychological effects.

(2) Therefore, the general assembly declares that due to the substantial negative impacts of placing juveniles and adults with specific health conditions in restrictive housing, the state must take immediate steps to end and prohibit the use of restrictive housing of juveniles and adults with specific health conditions in Colorado jails.

Source: L. 2021: Entire part added, (HB 21-1211), ch. 322, p. 1974, § 1, effective July 1, 2023.

Editor's note: The effective date of this part 3 as added by HB 21-1211 was changed from July 1, 2022, to July 1, 2023, by HB 22-1063. (See L. 2022, ch. 395, p. 2813.)